Well did the 3000 oil change on the SXT. The only pain is getting the bottom engine cover off(4 bolts). They (Dodge) was so nice to emboss instructions to take it off haha. "Remove cover for engine servicing". Also 4 BIG arrows pointing to the bolts. And sum-b*tch they use 10mm bolts. The oil drain plug is 13mm(1/2"). Have'nt found a Fram oil filter yet(books are too old). Did find out from the dealer that the oil filter is the same as the RT. 6 quarts of oil. Oil filter is verticle, you just have to loosen it a lil so it can drain the engine block. The sad part is that the Dodge dealer wanted over $30 to do the oil change. I used sythentic blend and with the cost of the $7 Dodge filter, I did it for the same amount. Of course keeping all the receipts for waranty purposes. I miss the days of "hands-on" work. But with the age of computers, cars have become more reliable(somtimes hah).

 

Save your money, synthetic blend is no better than pure dino oil.

 

I just run 5 qts of good old Valvoline and 1 qt of Marvel Mystery Oil. Mother Nature sometimes knows best!!

 

What exactly is Marvel Mystery Oil supposed to do anyway? I've seen it around for years, just never looked into it.

Heck on that same note - would going to amsoil products accomplish anything worthwhile?

How about after market add-ins, like Prolong and the myriad of other add-me-to-your-oil-and-live-happily-ever-after products?

Opinions are what makes life go round (this forum too!) - I've saved two engines by using Prolong, I'm quite sure. I drove my 92 TBird 3.8L V6 over a hundred miles with no coolant in it - passenger side rear cylinder was burning whatever it could suck in. It never overheated or froze up or smoked and was within 6 lbs of the other cylinders .

Then, sitting in line at the dump one day, some dude honks and says 'hey mister, yer leakin' something!' - yup, and it was bridght green too! That was the Pontiac 6000 Safari Wagon ('The Woody') with a v6. Drove that like 23 miles or so. Neither car suffered any lasting damage - the Woody I replaced the radiator and hoses and refilled it, and it's still running last I heard, some 60K miles later. That had idiot lights that never came on.

The T-Bird suffered from Fords iron-block aluminium head design woes, if you got a 3.8L motor over 100K without losing a headgasket, you were lucky - and 'next' :-) Couple hundred bucks in parts and a week of evenings and it ran very well. Towed a u-haul to Georgia and last I knew was still running the streets.

Not real sure I want to do anything yet to the Hemi - I don't want to muck this little jewel up - awesome motor.

Mike
'05 Black R/T, everything except for the roofrackand sirius radio - fronts tinted 15%, ordered Borla/CAI/Eibach..


[IMG]local://upfiles/6640/68B05FC0E077417999852700BC0A7F2B.jpg[/IMG]

 

My dad and the guy who invented gool old MMO grew up together and we actually did the field testing when in development on our farm up in Oklahoma. THe guy who invented it use to work for DOW Chemical. He lived up in Tulsa and he and my Dad met when they were both at Murray State College. I don't know the exact chemical compounds in it, all I know is that we used it in all of our vehicles and two of them that I still know of are still on the road (sorta) today. One was a great 3/4 ton '56 Dodge pickup with a slant 6 and the thing is still on the road and HAS NEVER BEEN OVERHAULED. It HAS been fully restored but never had the lower end reworked, just had a few valve jobs and other misc stuff. The other story is the old Big Red Hemi out of our old 2-1/2 ton heavy hauler truck we use to haul wheat to the grainery in. When the truck fell apart, we yanked the engine out, converted it to butane, put it to work as an irrigation pump and it, too, IS STILL RUNNING TODAY!! It, though, has never even had the heads of it and God only knows how many hours IT has on it. So, yeah, MMO helps a little, I guess???

 

Straight from FRAM's website. Too bad I did'nt think of this before paying over $7 for a filter. Could have saved myself $5. This is for all 3 Engines


ExtraGuard PH16
ToughGuard TG16
DoubleGuard DG16
X2 XG16

 

Fram filters suck. They are the worst of the oil filters available to you. I suppose the double gaurd or whatever is probably OK but then it's about the same price as the OE filter so whats the point? There is a reason the orange ones are on sale for 1.99 and almost every other oil filter is 5-10 bucks.

With very few exception almost all DCX engines for the last decade or so use the same oil filter. Exceptions are the V10, diesel, 4cylinder (although the bigger filter fits), the Mitsubishi and the 2.7/3.7.

All 2.5, 4.0, 4.7, 5.2. 5.7. 5.9, 8.0 (truck) use a part #5281090.

 

I have run Fram for over 20 years without a single problem. Engines running from 1.6L high rever to a 427 blown(super charged) and a couple of engines that I have put over 100,000 miles on them. I change the oil every 3000 religously(sp). One of the engines was a 4.3L that I sold when I replaced it with a 350. The buyer had it overhauled and the mech that did it said that it did not look like that of a high mileage engine on the inside. When it comes to maker brand expendibles, I just go back to the charges that they do for simple maintenance ie:the $30 dealer oil change that if I used the same parts still only costs $20 in parts, $15 if I use FRAM. Hell Walmart charges $20 for an oil change(6 quarts) using name filter and oil, $15 for the no name parts. And then the biggest ripoff that a dealer wanted to charge $370 for axle fluid change on a 2002 Dodge Ram 1500 4X4 that my cost was 1 1/2 hour my time, $70 in DODGE fluids. $300 in labor, oh hell no! That works out to $100 an hour. I know that they charge a set hour rate for each task. Nothing personal, but when a maker says things about aftermarket items I tend to turn a deaf ear. Your experiences as a Dodge mechanic are probably more vast than mine, but I will go with my personal experiences. $5 here and there saved is enough to keep me goin on. This is not a flame just on Dodge all makers are like that. Harley is the worst.

 

I agree about dealer pricing, my filter flame is based on my engine building experiences with off-shore race boats. We have done extensive testing (there is even a link around this forum somewhere) with fliters. Almost every filters made anywhere have been tested and the orange Fram is rated the worst, it has the least filtering media, the thinnest wall thickness and a crappy paper by-pass valve. I do not at all demand dealer serving (although we know do know your car better than anyone including you) but just recommend buying quality products. I only use Napa (Wix) gold line oil filters and Mobil 1.

 

Correct! Fram filters are almost always rated the lowest of any filter in terms of performance and features. They really are quite horrible. (Fram does make a nice "Fram Racing" filter, though I don't know if they're available for the Magnum.)
Wix, Mobil 1, Motorcraft, and Amsoil filters are all excellent alternatives.